


Five Floors Up

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Annie likes to record things on her camcorder, City Underbelly, Downtown Eastside, F/M, Jean is an Austen fan, Jean's POV, POV, POV First Person, Poverty, Vancouver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's a truant; living in the underbelly of an idyllic city while knowing every day that the scum of the streets will rise above his head and suffocate him.<br/>She's an outsider; refusing to be defined by her life in both the underbelly and the idyllic world that has embraced her.<br/>He ignores the reasons behind his suffering, and she ignores the values of her two worlds.<br/>They stand five floors up above the rising accumulation of filth that will inevitably take at least one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Floors Up

**Author's Note:**

> I admit that I have not written Annie too much, and that I have not written in Jean's point of view before. So all I can say with this story is: I tried.  
> This is set in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, which while I admit that I don't live there, I've spent a lot of time in that area before. But I can't really say that this is an accurate representation of what goes on in that area though.  
> This was fun to write actually. Which is weird, because I usually find joy in writing complete sadness and not just misery.  
> Hope you enjoy the story.

I know this should get me killed, but that’s only one of several things tonight that I can add to that list. That list is rather long by now, I might add. 

The question that remains unanswered for right now me is not: _Will I die?_

Because I can hear the sound of police sirens blasting behind me and tires screeching like mad.

So now, the question becomes: _How will I die?_

Will I trip and break my neck like an idiot? Will I hit my head and crack my skull? Will I lose the loot in my backpack and starve to death after not eating for days? Or will the cops chasing me finally catch up and decide to put me down?

No matter what way I go, I tell myself that the route I'm going isn’t going to be juvie. With that in mind, I run faster. 

Adrenaline kicks into my system, and when I turn into an alleyway, I end up running faster and jumping higher. I jump across the trash cans and scum on the street as I continue my dash. 

Ahead of me, I can see a wire fence acting like an obstacle in my run. Obstacles are challenges, and challenges are meant to me taken. So when I get close, I leap onto the wire weaves and start climbing. 

My challenge becomes my mistake. I take too much time to climb. Once I’m in the middle of the fence, I hear a gun cocking behind me and a voice saying: _“FREEZE!”_

I have no choice but to comply, so I become immobile, the only moving muscle in my body becomes my pounding heart. 

_ “Get down from the fence!”  _

I obey and hop off. I don’t even turn around. I know for a fact that cops tend to be sensitive to plenty of things. If you move without being asked, they shoot. If you breathe without validation, they shoot. And if you exist without a permit, they lock you up. 

I wait for instructions, my forced patience being tainted with panic. 

“Put your hands behind your head!” 

When I do so, I can hear the clinking noise of hand cuffs behind me. 

_Fucking hell._  

Fuck, cuffs, man. Seriously.

When I hear footsteps, I know the cop’s walking up to me. 

“You have the right to remain silent,” he recites as I hear the clinking of the cuffs getting closer. “Anything you say will be used against you.”

The cold touch of the metal is all I need to react. My hands move and grasp the cuffs behind me. In a swift motion, I put one cuff on the cop’s hand. 

“Hey, what the-?”

The motion is quick, and with the next one I perform, I take two other things out of his hands, his gun and his key, and link the remaining cuff onto the fence. 

His reactions are slow; don’t police officers have fitness standards or something? Or have to be trained to not be schooled by ruggedly handsome street punks like me?

With the key in my hand, I dangle them in front of his face before throwing it away.

“HEY! GIVE THAT BACK!” the cop screams. When I shake my head, his focus changes over towards the glock in my hand. “What are you gonna do now, huh? Shoot me?”

Him? Not at all. His life isn’t worth wasting bullets on. But the tires in his car, however, are worth the trigger pulls. 

I have no use for the gun anyway, so once I unload the cartridge on the squad car’s tires, I throw the thing away. 

“HEY! MY CAR!” he screams. “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT, YOU SHIT.”

“How about we put a pin in that, sweetheart?” I tell him as I run back to the fence. I climb up again, and this time, I know he won’t be able to stop me. I leap over the top and land on the other side, “Rain check, baby. Sorry!” 

The last thing I hear are his frustrated grumbles as I run down the alleyway and make a b-line for home. 

* * *

I’ve run into some real pricks in my life, but so far, my landlord is a fucking cactus. He’s one of those guys that you don’t think would do any harm to you, judging by how big that gut of his happens to be. Dot can’t cause any harm to me, but he can be more annoying than a pebble in a leather boot. 

His presence is the reason why I have to enter my flat using alternative methods. It takes a walk in the alley way for me to find the ladder of the fire escape and a good amount of my time to climb up the metal structure without waking up my neighbours. 

If I pissed them off, they’d tell Dot about me. And if they did, I wouldn’t be fucked, but I’d be something very close to it. What the word for it? Screwed? Yeah, possibly.

My place is on the fifth floor. I know it’s a high climb, but falling to my death in an alleyway really can’t be the worst way for me to die in my state of living. At least I'd be going out quickly.

I come quietly towards the floor. I can only hope that each motion doesn’t make too much noise. I climb up each floor slowly and as silently as possible. My backpack sags on my back as I make it to the fifth floor and look over to my window. When I reach for the ledge, I hear something beside me.

Turning my head, I see a person standing on the fire escape box beside mine. I think she’s my neighbour, maybe. She has the blonde hair and hooked nose that I know my neighbour has, but the woman I’ve always seen living beside me is much older. Perhaps this is her daughter. 

In her hands, she holds a camera, and behind her ear is an unlit cigarette. I do not really give a royal flying fuck about the cigarette, but the camera makes me just a little uncomfortable. 

“Can you not film me, please?” I request in a plain voice as I push on my window.

She doesn’t turn the camera off, “Why?”

The damn window proves itself to be a more stubborn bastard than the shop keeper at the corner store. I pull on it and continue to speak, “Because I don’t want to be filmed, okay?”

I wish I could just open my window and slip in and forget everything, but due to the stubbornness of the damn thing, I’m stuck in the presence of both a stuck window and my neighbour’s potential daughter. 

She scoffs and turns the camera off, “Party pooper.”

Thankfully, the window finally gives and opens up. I nearly sigh in relief when it does. I give the girl one last glance and wave goodbye before I slip inside my flat. I go inside too quickly to see if she waves back or not. 

My place isn’t technically mine. It belonged to my mom and dad for a while, and now, it’s only resident is me. In truth, I try to ignore the reasons why the apartment is now mine and mine only. For a guy who tries to be true to himself, I’m in some real denial about certain things.

The place stops feeling like a home sometimes and more like a cage. A cage that holds me; Jean Kirschtein, the freak who needs to be contained. It’s where I rest and where I eat, just like every other monstrosity from the streets. 

The place used to be furnished and nice, something suitable for family and a brat to live in. But one day, I asked myself if I’d prefer a sofa or a rent and a meal. My stomach made me chose a meal that day and became the reason why I don’t have a couch anymore.

At least I have a bed. When I step into my flat and close the window behind me, I make a b-line to the bedroom and ignore everything else. The thought of finally seeing my bed after today was honestly one of the best things I’ve thought about in a while. 

I open the door to my bedroom, expecting nothing but an empty room and a mattress on the floor. But when I push the door back, what I see is something else. 

It was like God or someone looked down to me and said: _“Fuck you, Jean Kirschtein. This day can and will get worse!”_ There's probably an evil laugh thrown in there for good measure.

Out of 7 billion people in the world, it just had to be Dot fucking Pixis who inside my bedroom. 

_Fucking perfect._

If he was the tooth fairy, I’d be just as surprised, but less angry. Because that bastard doesn’t have wings and a wand, I react the only way I know how; angrily.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Dot?”

He looks up with an empty drawer box in his hands. The look in his eyes is both determined yet relaxed.

“I need rent, Kirschtein!” he tells me in an oddly chill manner. “You know the deal.”

I run up to him and grab his arm, “I’ll get you your fucking rent, just get the hell out here and leave me alone!” Blood is pumping in my ears and I can feel my heart beat banging against my chest. I drag him as hard as I can and pull him to the doorway. He resists.

“Aye, let go of me, punk!”

I shove him out of the room forcefully, “How’d you even get in? Did you take anything? HEY!” In his hands, I see a handful of bills. That bastard was raiding my drawers for cash, and it it looks like he managed to find my emergency stash behind my socks. I reach for the bills, but Dot pushes me away. “Give that back to me! That’s mine!”

“Not anymore,” Dot informs me, pushing my hand away. “You know how it goes, kid. No rent, no apartment. If you wanna keep living here, this better be mine now, got it?.” He pockets the cash into his slacks and part of me wants to tackle and strangle him. But that’s a one-way ticket to juvie just waiting to get punched.

I growl and grit my teeth, “This is bullshit.”

“Whoa! You’d kiss your mother with that mouth.”

“Fuck off, Dot.”

I turn around and try to shut myself away from him, but when I do, I feel him grasp my backpack.

“Hey hey, what’s in here?”

“Let go! That’s mine!” I fight against him and try to pull away, but when I try, Dot slips the thing off me with ease. 

He starts rummaging through my bag like the human piss stain he is and takes out my loot. 

“Cookies, chocolate, apples and a can of beans. Hm… not the most balanced meal, but I’ll take it,” Dot decides. He throws the empty backpack back at me and takes my loot in his hands. 

“Hey! That’s my dinner!” The temptation to punch him becomes stronger. “Give it back!”

“You’re a growing boy, Kirschtein,” Dot argues. “You’ll need a better meal than this. See ya!” He pushes me away and makes me stumble back into my room.

When he leaves, I hit the floor of my bedroom harshly. But with the blood pumping in my ears, I ignore the pain and grit my teeth as I follow him. 

Dot is at my door by the time I catch up to him. “Hey! You can’t do this to me! That’s thievery!”

“So nothing you’re not used to, I assume?” Dot says when he opens the door. When he exits, he breaks off into a run, dashing down the hall like the gutless turd he is.

I scream and my voice echoes against the walls of the hall, but I have no human ability to give a damn about being too loud right now. “YOU’RE A FUCK FACE, YOU KNOW THAT DOT?”

“I know!” I can hear him reply down the hall. 

Even when he finally leaves my sight, I’m still angry. My head is hot and my breathing is faster than the speed of sound. I know I should relax, but I can’t. I’m exhausted, wheezing, starving, and weak. What else is there for me to do? Go back into my flat with no dinner, no cash, and not a single idea on what to do next?

The last time I got this angry, I punched a hole in the wall and flipped the table in my apartment. I can’t do that again, my neighbours are gonna hear and get a social worker to deal with the me, and a social worker would think I was out of my goddamn mind if they saw the mess that is my life.

I should cool off. Maybe take a nap or go back out and take a walk. If I did, maybe I could find dinner; if it’s possible to find dinner at 10PM. 

I take a deep breath before I turn around back to my mess of a home. I shut the door behind me and secure both of the locks. I should’ve put the chain lock on before I left, maybe Dot wouldn’t have gotten in that way. 

I go back to my room. It’s just as messy as the rest of the place, even more now since Dot just ransacked my drawers. The bed doesn’t even have a box spring or sheets, it’s just a mattress on the floor with one pillow and one blanket. But there have been times in my life where my bed has felt like the only happy thing in my life.

So far, my bed has never fucked me over, deserted me, or stolen my shit. That’s why I never feel crazy when I say: _“Hello, Bed”_ before flopping down on it. 

I lie on my back and look around the room. Dot’s emptied my drawers and thrown every sock and shirt on the floor. Besides my emergency cash, I don’t have anything else to hide in there.

He’s messed up my book stack as well. Each one of them is thrown on the floor. They’re mostly stolen from the times I’ve pick pocketed around the city’s universities and colleges, and a few of them from when my folks used to live here. 

When I’m angry, I usually read that 10 pound text book I stole off of a lit student or that pocket version of _Pride And Prejudice_ I picked off the subway. One is boring as hell to me, and the other is one of my favourite novels of all time. 

But now, I don’t want to. I’m tired, exhausted, and I don’t even feel bothered to clean up the mess in my room. All I want to do is sleep and wish that tomorrow would be better than today.

I’m in bed for 4 minutes when I hear something that takes me out of my tired state; a knock on the door. 

Automatically, I groan and respond: “Leave me alone, dickhead!”

When no replies come, I get the feeling that it’s not Dot. Dot usually replies when he knocks on my door, like most people do. If it’s not Dot, who could be looking for me?

The cops? No, they usually announce that it’s them as well. Civil law or something like that. 

No matter what, that person better be important, because soon, I’m pulling myself off of my bed after one of the shittiest nights my week and trudging to the door. 

First, I push my eye to the door’s peephole to see who it is. I’m surprised to find that while it’s someone who isn’t Dot, it’s someone I’ve spoken to in the last hour. 

It’s my neighbour again, along with her camera. She has it pointed towards my door at the moment. I’m honestly not surprised.

I undo the first lock on my door and open it just slightly, the chain being the only thing stopping me from opening it all the way. 

She looks up at me with the same stone cold eyes as before. They’re green like a lizard’s skin and sharp like a thorn. There isn’t much emotion on her face, but she speaks in a manner that is both dispassionate and inviting. 

“Hello.” 

“Hi.” I look to the camera, “Still recording, I see.” 

“Yeah.”

“Who’s watching? The millions of people at home with their TVs?”

“I’m a video blogger,” she explains. “I just record life.” 

“Every day?” 

“Yes.”

“What do you want then?” I ask her simply. “Guest star of the week?”

“No,” she confirms as she shakes her head. “But if you’re interested, I got leftovers from dinner that you can have… if you want.”

The concept in food feels like a dream turned into reality. “Oh, really?”

“It’s lasagna, just half of it, but I’m not gonna touch it and my mom’s asleep,” she informs me. “Want it?” 

I nod my head a little too eagerly, “Yeah, but you don’t even know me. You could be feeding a serial killer right now.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “So? You wouldn’t be the first I’ve met.” 

I raise an eyebrow in deep concern, “I was joking about that.” 

A very small amount of embarrassment is visible in her eyes. “Oh…” She changes the subject very quickly. “Still want it or what?” 

“That’d be very nice,” I respond. I shut the door and undo the chain lock before opening it once more. “I’m Jean, by the way. Jean Kirschtein.”

She nods her head as she turns to her own apartment door, “I know.”

“And you are?”

“I’m Annie.” 

In the next few moments, she opens the door of her apartment and leads me in. The place is just like mine, the main difference being the fact that it is much much cleaner and much more adorned with furniture and home essentials. 

But it’s still small. A dinner table sits by the window, along with a laptop and a few textbooks. On the kitchen counter sits my saving grace; the leftovers. It looks stone cold in the tin foil pan, but my hunger overpowers my discomfort with cold food. 

“I’ll heat that up for you,” Annie offers as she sets her camera down. She points it to herself before grabbing a plate and putting a slice of the food on it. 

“No,” I say. “Fine like this.” 

She shrugs her shoulders and hands me the plate. “Suit yourself then.”

We move to the dinner table, Annie sitting by the laptop and books and me sitting across from her. 

I dig in right away. When I eat, I know I look like a pig enjoying his daily portion of slop, but when it comes to food, I really don’t care how I look when I eat it. I haven’t worried about table manners in years, whether I’m eating a snagged sandwich from a convenient store or spoonfuls of cold lasagna. 

I barely look up to her as I eat. It feels like a decade since I last had a good meal. Or maybe a century. At one point, I feel like I’ve disregarded chewing and started prioritizing swallowing. 

I guess that’s just a thing with me now. There isn’t any point in slowing things down and _‘savouring the moment’_ like most people would say. In my world, those moments aren’t absent, they just don’t last long. When those moments come, I have to take in as much as I can before it’s gone. So at least at the end of the day, I could look back on the moment and remember it. 

“Fuck,” I let out as a shovel more food into my mouth. 

“What?” Annie asks. She looks up from her books and computer to glance at me.

“This is good,” I answer. “I haven’t eaten in like… forever. Thanks.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “It’s just lasagna.” 

It honestly boggles my mind that she would offer her food to me. Maybe she heard me and Dot screaming at each other, or just didn’t feel like wasting leftovers that night. Whatever it is, I want to ask her why she’s decided to be kind to someone like me. But part of me tells myself that asking about it would just ruin everything. I have a habit of fucking things up, and I don’t want that to continue, at least not now.

Amongst Annie’s textbooks and computer, I notice something sitting by her as I eat. It’s her camera, again. It’s pointed at me, something that I think I should start getting used to the more I spend time her.

She told me she was a video blogger, but maybe that camera means more to her than just a way to record her every day life. It could easily be like a shield; a barrier that she puts between her and anyone else who interacts with her. Either that, or it’s potential video evidence if anyone, probably me, were to attack her in any way. 

She should probably know that I have no interest in hurting people who offer me free food.

“That recording?” I ask her, pointing to the camera with my freehand. 

“Yes,” she responds. 

“Do you really record _every_ day of your life?” I wonder. 

“Every day,” she confirms. 

“Why?”

“Because I want to.” 

“Ever get anything weird on that thing?”

“I get the occasional hobo catcalling me,” Annie starts. “And sometimes, my classmates take it and put random shit on the memory card.”

Judging by the mention of classmates, the basis of my next question seems like a good topic of conversation. “You go to school?”

She nods her head. 

“Which one?” 

“A public one that no one cares about,” Annie tells me. “You?”

I answer honestly, “Haven’t in years. Dropped out when I was 12, never went back.”

“Hm, sounds shitty,” she remarks. 

“It was,” I tell her. It wasn’t my choice to leave, but I had to. For me, going to school turned my life into a triangle of shit. I’d go to school and my teacher would treat me like shit. I’d leave the classroom at recess and my classmates would do the same. And things wouldn’t change when I went home, since dad enjoyed giving me the exact same treatment. 

It was this cycle of yelling that I started to loathe. I had to get rid of one of them, so I left school and the teaches dropped out of that triangle. At the same time, the classmates did as well. Dad didn’t seem to mind. As long as I stayed out of the house from 9 until 3 as he did god knows what all day.

After that, life kind of got better. I still had to deal with dad every day, mom was gone by then, and I still had to occupy myself for 6 hours of the day, but it wasn’t horrible.

“What are you studying now?” I inquire. 

“Language Arts. We have to do novel study,” Annie explains. She grabs a book from her stack and shows the cover to me. 

“ _The Odyssey_ , huh?” I remark. “That’s a classic.”

“You’ve read it?”

I nod my head, “Yeah, a while ago. When I dropped out of school, I’d go to the library just to kill time. Did a lotta reading during that time, and I didn’t skimp on the popular stuff.” I wipe my face on my sleeve and stand from my seat, “Need help?”

“Not entirely, I just need to bullshit the rest of the essay to extend it to 7 pages.” 

I chuckle, “Just mention that there were a lotta words you didn’t know in the text and that you looked in a dictionary to know what they were. Works like a charm.”

Annie looks hesitant, yet, thoughtful, “Hm. I could try.”

I walk over to her side of the table and look at the text on her laptop, “To fill more pages, talk more about the relationships between the characters.”

“Which one? I’ve been doing that for pages,” she explains. 

“Try an odd one,” I suggest. “Like the one between Odysseus and No One.” 

“But No One’s not real,” Annie points out. “No One’s just someone Odysseus made up to distract the retard cyclops.”

I nod my head and snap my fingers, “That’s the point. And I’m pretty sure the retard cyclop’s name is was Polyphemus, by the way.”

The gaze in her eyes are still stone cold, but when she looks at me and my cheeky grin, she appears to be just a bit impressed with me. 

“You’re pretty smart for a punk, you know that?” Annie tells me.

I try to be modest with my knowledge of entry level greek literature, but my grin only grows bigger, “I know.”

“So how often do you read?” she asks to me. 

I pull up a spare chair and sit beside her, “I have a lot of spare time on my hands. Got a whole stack of stolen books in my room now. You can borrow some if you want.”

“I’m okay,” Annie answers. “Can help me extend the rest of this essay, right?”

It’s cocky, but yet, I smile even wider, “In my sleep.”

* * *

It’s 10:48 when I join Annie to help out on her work, but time progresses onto 11:37 when she mutters ‘fuck it’ and decides to hand in her essay a few words short. It might have been a irresponsible choice to not encourage her to finish, but the truth is, I’m in absolutely no position to force her to learn. Besides, I heard that people learn better when it’s their choice to and not when forced. 

She goes to a public school anyway, how high can the standards of education be?

It’s 11:40 when she stands up from her chair to grab my dirty dishes from the other end of the table. 

“I can wash those,” I offer. 

She’s stubborn when she shakes her head and walks into the kitchen without much of a reply. It’s odd for someone like me to feel a bit bad for making her wash the dishes that I’ve dirtied; because pocketing cash and watches from rush hour at the subway station doesn’t make me feel a thing, but getting someone to clean up my dirty dishes is suddenly crossing some sort of line.

I may be more fucked up than I originally thought. 

I get off my seat and walk into the kitchen with her, but just as she starts wetting the plate, I stop and notice something on the counter. It’s a pack of cigarettes; a popularbrand from the looks of the label, and the top opened up to reveal the few sticks inside. 

It was the weirdest sense of nostalgia for me, since these were the brand of cigarettes I’d snag from my dad when I was bored.

The mere appearance is enough to tempt me. I’ve stopped swiping them from unsuspecting smokers outside of bars, since a lit cancer stick to the leg actually hurts a lot. I haven’t had one in a while. The last time I did was when I bummed one off a buddy, and that was months ago. 

I take one cigarette out of the pack and glance to Annie, “Hey, can I bum one of these?”

She turns her head to me for a second before nodding, “Yeah, whatever. But not in here. Go onto the balcony.”

It’s a simple price to pay for me, and I grin just slightly as I tuck the cigarette behind my ear, “Sure thing.”

“Here.” Before I go, Annie reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a zippo. She tosses it to me, and I catch it easily. “Use this.”

“Thanks,” I respond. Soon, I turn around from her and head right to the balcony. I slide the glass door back before stepping out into the evening’s chill. The cold piercing at my cheeks barely bothers me as I grab my cigarette from my ear and light it up with the zippo. I inhale and exhale, letting the heat from the stick warm me up from the inside. 

Between one drag, I glanced down to the zippo Annie threw to me. It’s metal, like any other zippo I’ve seen, but on the surface is a design. It’s some sort of greenish unicorn with white hair. Looks weird and cool at the same time, how convenient. 

Behind me, I hear the glass door sliding open again. I turn around with the expectation of Annie poking her head through, but instead, the one I see is that damn camera lens making it’s epic return. Great. 

At least Annie follows after it, stepping out to join me with her camera on and recording. 

“Do you really have to bring that here?” I comment as she shuts the door. 

“My balcony, my rules,” she responds in a mumble. She has a cigarette held between her lips, somewhat similar to how I saw her earlier tonight. She puts the camera down for a second and takes the cancer stick out, “Can I have that lighter back?”

I grab the zippo from my pocket and hand it to her, “Take it.”

She pops the cover and lights up without any word. 

“By the way, what’s with the symbol on that thing? You got a kink for unicorns with sea sickness?”

Annie lets out a single puff of smoke before responding with a shoulder shrug, “It was my mom’s, so I don’t know.”

“At least it looks cool,” I comment before taking a drag. 

“I guess,” Annie agrees partially. 

The next passage of time is filled with silence and the puffing of smoke between Annie and I. In the moment of wordlessness, my eyes affix themselves onto the cityscape in front of us. 

The Downtown Eastside isn’t that part of Vancouver people would write songs about, or go to with the intentions of experiencing the arts. It’s not that side people show on post cards. It’s the underbelly of the city; the underbelly that everyone ignores whenever they gloat on and on about how awesome this place is. 

We are five floors up above the city’s line of built-up scum and filth, and that line feels like it’s rising faster and faster every day. One day, it may go over my head, and there’s no one I could scream to for help. I don’t know when it’ll get that high, but every moment of my life makes it seem like that moment is coming soon. My end could come if it happens, or maybe I’d be able to hit an even lower low than the one I’m already at. 

But I’m pretty sure that if I die in my current living conditions, going to hell would be considered a promotion.

I could never be excited to climb up the edge of my building to get home, or to wander amongst the other outsiders when I’m bored during the day.

This is the part of the city that parents warn their kids to stay away from, and I can see why. There are people like me here. 

There are people who are defined by their birthright, by the blood that runs through their veins, by anything else that runs through their veins, and by their mistakes in the past. 

Apparently, everyone makes mistakes that can be forgiven, but only if you’re rich. If the socioeconomic grading system has classed you underneath the grime and filth of the streets, then your mistakes are remorseless. You’ll get blamed for them until the cops discover your rain-soaked body in an alley way or find you going insane on a street curb. 

But at the same time, there are people like Annie here. 

I know that she’s not like me, but she’s not my polar opposite either. She can tolerate the Downtown Eastside as much as I can, and at the same time, let the world of idealistic and normal values embrace her as one of their own. I can tell that she isn’t the type of person who snags apples from fruit stands, but isn’t the kind who worries about who she’s going to attend the sock hop with either. 

She has that interesting balance about her, and if I’m being entirely honest, that’s pretty impressive. She doesn’t let her means define her; she can go out there and convince the city that she isn’t afraid of drowning if the accumulation of filth and deficit rises above her head. 

She doesn’t let herself mould to fit any particular status in a bewildering state of neutrality, and that’s just amazing.

I’d kill to be like her; to be normal like that. I’ve wondered if I could sometimes; wondered if it’d be worth it to talk to an adult that didn’t want to murder me, maybe they could take me away from this joint, get me out of this suffocation. 

But every time I’ve wondered, I’ve had to face the facts. Stories like that only happen if you’re an 11 year old redhead living in New York, or if you’re really really lucky.

They’d never to someone like me. With my luck, I’d maybe get a suit tossing me a quarter while telling me to stay in school, and that would be the end of it. 

Annie may not be a millionaire with designer suits, but she’s been nice to me so far, which is much better in my opinion. 

“Cold tonight,” are the words Annie mutters that breaks me out of my thoughts.

Shaking the ideas out of my head, I nod along, “Yeah. Good thing it isn’t raining.” I take a drag between my words, “Hey, why do we have to smoke out here? I’ve seen Dot smoking inside his place all the time.”

“My mom hates the smell,” Annie mentions. “It keeps her up when she’s trying to sleep.”

“She sleeps earlier than most adults do,” I obverse.

“She’s a waitress at a country club in Richmond,” Annie tells me. “She takes the breakfast shift in the mornings.”

I nod my head, “Makes sense. What does your dad do?”

Her eyes glance down towards the floor of the balcony, her grip on her burning cancer stick tightening just a bit. 

I feel stupid for even asking something like that and try my best to fix my mistake, “Sorry, bad subject?” 

She shakes her head and answers anyway, “No, it’s fine. My dad’s… well, he’s my dad. I don’t know where he is, but mom says he pays child support. Guess that’s all I need to know about him.”

I want to be reply smartly, but all I can do is nod my head, “Oh…”

“He visits some times, but mom hates him,” Annie comments, staring blankly at her cigarette. “So I don’t talk to him when he’s in town.”

I do my best to reply intellectually, “That’s rough, buddy.”

She changes the subject abruptly, “What does your dad do?”

My usual reaction to questions like these are a glance off to the side whilst I ignorantly push out facts that I don’t like to face. But I don’t think I can do that now. Annie’s told me her deal with her parents, and it’s probably fair if I tell her the deal with mine. 

Maybe not the entire deal though. If I’m a supporting character in her story, I’ll have to wait about 10 chapters before revealing my tragic past.

“My dad’s like my mom,” I start. “They’re illusionists.”

“They’re magicians?” Annie guesses. 

I nod my head, “Yeah. One day, mom just decides to disappear. Years later, dad follows for act two.”

She takes her eyes off her burning cigarette and glances to me. I could see the stoniness of her eyes softening very slightly. “Do you know where they are?”

“Magicians never reveal their secrets,” I admit coldly. “Not even to their own kids.”

My words come out better when coated in metaphors and ambiguity. I’m actually surprised that I manage to not make an emotional scene. That stuff aside, I do hope that Annie understands what I meant when I said those things. 

She’s a clever person, so I’m confident that she understands. The look in her eyes tell me that my confidence is well justified. 

But even with her comprehension and me managing to say the words more easily, I still feel sick inside when I talk about this stuff. 

I’ve existed on this planet for 17 years, and I’ve been spending the last 4 years trying to ignore why mom only stayed for 8 and why dad only stayed for 13. 

Why didn’t they want me? What was wrong with me? Was it something I said? Or just my mere presence in their lives that caused them to leave?

I don’t think I ever cared about knowing where mom and dad went, because I’ve cared much much more about knowing why they went away in the first place. 

Right now, my hand is grasping the balcony rail as tightly as possible. It’s cold to the touch and rustier than a nail, but even as the coarse metal scratches my palm, it’s the best thing I can do to keep myself in check. My hand’s gonna be brown and red once I take it off, but that’s the least of my worries now.

Eventually, I toss out my finished cigarette and let it fall to the street below. I glance down to the camera sitting on the ledge of the balcony. It’s pointed to me and Annie, recording, just as always. 

“Hey, did you just catch my tragic backstory on tape?” 

Annie scoffs and takes her camera back, “No one uses tape these days.”

“Then what does that thing record on?” I ask her. 

“Memory card,” Annie reminds as she puts out her now finished cigarette.

“Where’d you get it?” I wonder as she points the damn thing towards me again.

“My school had this contest where you had to guess how many gumballs were in a jar,” she starts. “Got this as a reward for dumb luck.”

“Pretty cool reward for being lucky,” I admit. Awkwardly, I wave to the camera with my free hand. “Hello, there. Sorry I don’t look as good as I usually do, I fired my hair and make up artist today. They were charging me for not showing up.”

Annie stares at me blankly. 

“That was another joke,” I explain bluntly. 

“I know.” 

I have a feeling that most of my jokes will always go over he head no matter how many times I tell them.

“Hey, uh… what time is it now?”

“Past midnight probably,” Annie predicts. “Maybe even later.” 

“I should probably get going then,” I suggest. I move back towards the glass door and slide it open before slipping through. Annie follows me and closes the door behind her, the camera shaking like mad as she does so. 

“Be honest, are you gonna look at all that footage later?” I wonder to her as I make my way to the door. “Because if you are, that’s just a bit creepy.”

“Don’t worry, I delete all the boring stuff,” Annie informs. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be assuring to insulting to me.

I shrug when I head to the door, “Oh, that totally justifies it.” She’s probably missed all the sarcasm I’ve laced into my words. 

I reach over to the knob of the door and twist it open. Sighing, I look back to Annie and her camera, “I guess this is goodbye.” 

“Bye,” she says in a voice quieter than usual. 

I reach my hand out to her for a shake, “Thank you for everything, really. I swear, I was having the shittiest night of my week, and I’m honestly glad I ran into you.”

I don’t expect her to respond to me, but Annie reaches forward and touches my hand with hers. Her fingers are nimble and her palms are small, but she holds me tight enough to show some sort of feeling to me. 

I don’t know what to do now. Hold on for longer? Shake it more? Kiss it? No, that’s just awkward. I’ve known her for a goddamn night, it’s too early to make a fool of myself in front of her. Save that for chapter 2.

Instead, I let my hand linger in hers for a while. Maybe for a moment longer than necessary, but it should only prove my gratitude for the night and nothing more.

“I owe you one day,” I promise her. “Anything you need, as long as it’s not too weird, I’ll be there for you.” It’s the least I can do. She was the first person in a month to not look at me like I was a piss stain on the sidewalk. So of course I’d be indebted for that. 

“Ok,” she agrees. “Good night, Jean.”

“Good night, Annie,” are the last words I tell her before I release out grasp. Soon, I turn back to the door of her apartment and walk through. I close it behind me, the sound of it slamming echoing in the building’s hallway. I walk a few steps to my own door and unlock it with my key.

When I open that door, I close it to seal my existence inside that room once more. Soon, I make my way to my bedroom. I take off my hoodie and shoes and mumble _“Hello again, Bed”_ before flopping down on my bed once more. There, I have one of the most peaceful sleeps that I have had in a very long time. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Side note: If Eren's eyes can be that odd glowing green in the anime while they were grey in the manga, then Annie's eyes can be green in this one measly fanfiction.  
> If you liked the story, then please tell me what you think. I would like some good critical feedback for this, since I did work hard on it and so I can prove to my mother that creative writing is a possible career option for me.


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